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Easy Life say they're being sued by EasyJet over band name
3 October 2023, 11:38 | Updated: 4 October 2023, 12:55
The Leicester outfit took to social media to share a statement about legal action being taken by the airline.
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Easy Life have revealed that EasyJet's holding company EasyGroup have filed a lawsuit against them over their name.
The Leicester indie pop band took to Instagram today to reveal they are facing legal action from the budget airline in a statement, which began: "Okay… never imagined having to do this but we’ve no choice but to address the situation we find ourselves in".
The five-piece - made up of Murray Matravers, Oliver Cassidy, Sam Hewitt, Lewis Berry and Jordan Birtles - went on: "As some of you have already discovered, we are being sued, easy jet are suing us for being called easy life.
"They’re forcing us to change our name or take up a costly legal battle which we could never afford. we’ve worked hard to establish our brand i’m certain in no way have we ever affected their business."
They added: "although we find this whole situation hilarious, we are virtually powerless against such a massive corporation. i don’t really know what else to say, will keep you lot updated. for those of you who bought gig tickets and ended up on a budget flight to tenerife, i apologise, for the rest of you, thank you so much for your support”.
Fans and fellow musicians have reacted to the news with Frank Carter writing in the comments section: "This is f**kin wild.
"Oi for real tho… Hard Life has a good ring to it."
Paul Gallagher, the eldest of the Oasis brothers, wrote: "Your hardly easy Bob Marley are ya".
Producer and songwriter Indigo Kxd wrote: "i had to check the date wasn’t april - this is wild."
EasyJet's holding company EasyGroup Ltd and Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou have shared an official statement on their website, which reads: "It should be noted Stelios created and has owned the easy family of brands since 1994. His UK investment company, easyGroup Ltd is the legal entity suing Matravers and his fellow band members. easyGroup owns more than 1,000 registered trademarks including a trademark for the word “easy”."
It adds: "asyGroup Ltd is a profitable company that charges royalties to more than 50 carefully selected business partners for their using the easy brand conjoined with another word to form a sub-brand.
The most famous such brand is www.easyJet.com which pays 0.25% of its revenues to easyGroup for the right to use the easyJet brand which belongs to easyGroup."
Mr Matravers needs to understand that he is not being sued by an airline," the statement continued. "It should be clearly noted easyJet as a company is not part of the legal action. However, easyGroup, acts regularly in order to protect consumers from being confused by brand thieves and prevent “passing off”. To do this easyGroup Ltd has a legal budget of £4m per year with which to take action against brand thieves, big and small.
"Brand theft is profitable because it is the deliberate misleading of the consumer to think that they are part of the easy family in order to increase their own sales. It is not an innocent mistake, but a deliberate strategy to maximise their profits without being subject to easyGroup Ltd’s quality controls and without paying their annual royalties."
The statement also adds that the band have used easyGroup's styilsation as well of "images of easyJet planes" in their marketing, adding: "Not only does this take unfair advantage of easyGroup’s brand but it can also damage it as. For example, negative PR about Matravers (for example having to be carried off stage for being too drunk to perform), can reflect badly on easyGroup. Confusion is not necessary for such tarnishment to occur.
"It has come to easyGroup’s attention that they started selling various goods, including orange clothing that looked like our uniform, using the easyLife brand. The fact that Mr Matravers went out of his way to create a link in the mind of the consumer that he has something to do with the airline simply proves our case. See a photoshopped image of a plane created by Matravers to increase his profit."
